When the sun was setting
I found him.
In a gloomy hut
in Lonquen.
When the sun was setting
in Lonquen.

His hands, although so old,
were strong in their plaiting.
They were rough and they were tender
with the animal skin.

The plaited noose, like a snake,
curled around the walnut tree
and in every mesh was woven
his life and his bread.

How much time is contained in his hands
and in his patient gaze
and nobody has said: "That's enough,
you should not work anymore."

*"El Lazo" ("The Noose") by Victor Jara (translated by John M. Schechter). In Worlds of Music, edited by Jeff Todd Titon et alia (1996, New York: Schermer Books).